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Cries in the Night

41 votes

A young woman arrives at her grandmother's house, which used to be a funeral home, to help her turn the place into a bed-and-breakfast inn. After they open, however, guests begin disappearing or turning up dead.

Status: Released

Released Date: 1980-10-03

Runtime: 93 mins

Director: William Fruet

Writer: Ida Nelson

Spoken language: English

Genres: Horror, Thriller

Original title: Cries in the Night

Production Companies: The Incident at North Hampton Productions, Canadian Film Development Corporation

Production Countries: Canada

Cast

Kay Hawtrey

Lesleh Donaldson

Barry Morse

Dean Garbett

Stephen E. Miller

Alf Humphreys

Peggy Mahon

Harvey Atkin

Robert Warner

Jack Van Evera

Les Rubie

Doris Petrie

Bill Lake

Brett Matthew Davidson

Reviews

Wuchak

**_Through the woods to Grandmother's house we go_** A young woman (Lesleh Donaldson) ventures to the rural Northeast to stay with her grandmother (Kay Hawtrey) at an old home that used to be a funeral parlor. As they work on morphing it into a bed-and-breakfast, she attends to the needs of the sometimes obnoxious guests while dating a young man. But something really weird is going on, particularly in the locked basement. Shot in the dead of summer, 1979, “Funeral Home” is also known as “Cries in the Night.” It cost $1,400,000 in Canadian dollars, which would be equal to about $5,050,000 today. I point this out because that’s more than enough money to make a competent movie of this sort. Thankfully, it is proficiently made. You buy the people and their situation as a real in the manner of “Squirm” from four years earlier. Speaking of comparisons, it starts out very similar “Friday the 13th,” which is strange since this film started shooting five weeks before that way more popular one. However, it’s mostly a variation on “Psycho” with the classic Little Red Riding Hood setup. It’s similar to Tobe Hooper's “Eaten Alive,” but superior. “Mountaintop Motel Massacre” from three years later was obviously influenced by it. Lesleh is winsome as the brunette protagonist, but she’s strapped with dubious apparel. The sets, décor and costumes all have a curiously aged look. Nevertheless, the flick establishes a nice mood with the rural funeral home milieu, not to mention the nearby quarry, and strangely keeps your interest, plus I like the bit with the black cat. It runs 1 hour, 33 minutes, and was shot in the Toronto area in the outskirts of Markham (house), Elora (the town and quarry), Guelph and Lakeshore Studio near the city. GRADE: B-

2024-12-11

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